Grinden till Kina

Here’s the tale of how I made it to Shanghai last week despite everything tried to stop me:

Last week was the Chinese national day which meant a whole week off from work. Many of the people from our group had decided to go to Shanghai for the week to meet and catch up and we all looked forward to it. I was gonna fly there from Guangzhou, my closest bigger city. So in the morning I took the bus to Zhongshan to take a train to Guangzhou. That’s where I ran out of luck… I didn’t have much cash when I came to the train station but i didn’t think that would be a problem since I knew where to find a ATM. But the ATM seemed to have a bad day and I couldn’t get my cash so I tried a few others ATM:s with the same result, no money… And all of them gave my a error message in chinese characters, very helpful indeed…

Stranded in the middle of Zhongshan I had no other choice but to call my bank in Sweden but there was one small detail I didn’t consider, the time difference which meant I had to wait for almost an hour for them to open. At that time I was pretty stressed and worried about missing the flight. When they finally opened I had to argue for a while with them to make them unblock my card (and I had told them before I went to China that they shouldn’t block it). ”Yes, I am who I say I am” No, I can’t send you any papers, I’m in the middle of a chinese city” ”Well, I actually told you before that I should be here so not my fault” ”No, not later today, I need my money now” ”No, I still can’t send you any papers”

After I finally got my money I went to the train station but there the problems continued as I fell offer for racism for the first time in my life. I saw them sell train tickets for the next train to Chinese people but when I tried to buy a ticket they tried to sell my one for a train three hours later… Since I didn’t have any choice I bought that ticket but managed somehow to sneak aboard a earlier train (in your face!) and get to Guangzhou. But when I got there it was to late and the flight had already left. So instead I went to the train station but since it was National day and thousands of Chinese people travel they only had train tickets for three days later and they were quite expensive… So I went to the airport to see if I could get a new flight ticket but they were even more expensive…

Tired, hungry and angry after that day I sat down at the airport and searched online for a way to get to Shanghai. I found a train ticket for the next day and I started to look for a place to sleep. Hotels close to a airport is usually really expensive and it was to late to get to the hostel I knew about at the other end of the city. But then I had my first luck on the trip, one member of the airport staff started to talk to me and I told him my story and my problem so he just called a cheap hostel nearby and then said one of the airports cars would drive me there, that guy saved me from either losing a lot of money or sleeping at the train station. I wish I could thank him somehow!

So I got to the hostel and finally had dinner (the time was around 22) and started to hope that I would make it the next day.

But no…

When I came to the airport the next day I found out the I hadn’t bought a ticket, the site only took my money and tried to buy a ticket but there where no tickets available for me… So after cursing about my bad luck, I bought another ticket for the next day and actually got it in my hand this time…

I found another very cheap hostel for that night and the next day I went (again) to the train station and to the right place. The train was supposed to leave at 11 and by 12:30 I almost gave up all hope of making it. After a few more minutes they finally started to talk english in the speakers and they said that the train was delayed about 2.5 hours, yay!

Before the train came I made sure to have a good place in the queue so I would get a seat, I had bought the cheapest ticket possible. But then some funny guy decided to change the place for the train so instead of being among the first, I came aboard the train almost last so all the seat where gone…

After sitting on the floor for six hours (and every third minute someone wanted to walk pass me so I had to get up) I got a seat. Well, to be honest, half a seat but it was still better than the floor. After another two hours I got a seat for myself so I could sleep ”normally”. I can’t really say I sleep much, Chinese trains are not the best place to sleep. Around midnight when I finally started to fall asleep, someone tried to sell some toys and talked about them very loudly for over 15 minutes, if I hadn’t been so tired I would’ve knocked him to sleep…

I can’t really say I slept much that night but after ”waking up” I only had a few more hours to Shanghai. When I arrived in Shanghai (I still didn’t believe I would make it) I managed to get to the hostel without any misfortune at all and I finally got to meet my friends. That feeling was great, after three days of travel where I’d been chased by a angry cab driver, got screamed at for not speaking Chinese, frustration, disappointment and many extra expenses I had finally made it and I was very happy to meet everyone!

The hostel was nice with a really great breakfast, the best one I’ve eaten since I left Sweden! And Shanghai is a wonderful city, I’m happy I had been there before so I didn’t have to see everything important in three days, I could focus on the things I wanted to to. I took a trip to the old city where they have the best sushi place I’ve ever been to and of course the Bund, the area near the river across the financial district, look at the pictures!

After saying goodbye to all the friends again we flew home and everything went fine until I came to Guangzhou where it all started again…

They didn’t have any train tickets that would take me home in time for my lessons. I had to teach the same day, after not sleeping more then a few hours that night and many hours of travel. So I had to find a bus to Zhongshan and then from there I took a cab. But when I was close to the school, the cab driver didn’t slow down in time and we hit another car so we had to stand there for a while so they could argue and take a smoke… I finally made it to the school convinced that I should never travel in China again…. I started thinking afterwards, if the thing about Karma being for real, what had I done to deserve all this?? When I came back, my ”room mates” comment was: ”your travels are a disaster!” I can agree to that for now…

But I have to say it was worth it, I had a great time! Here are the pictures from Shanghai:

I’m now sitting in my office at school and will soon prepare some lessons, I’ve got my first extra job outside the school This weekend I will go to some other school and teach kids in the age of 8-12 and I have to find something fun for them to do. This job will probably be quite fun and it will give me some sweet extra cash

I have also started to think about the spring and what to do. I’m almost certain that I won’t return to Sweden for now but I don’t know what I want to do here. I really like this school so staying here is one option but I could also find another school which would give me a lot more money so I could go travel later. Another alternative is to find some other kind of work here. I need to think more about this, I’ll return with my plans later when I know

But for now, goodbye and take care!